My attempt at withdrawing an IRS tax lien

[daheata]

I have learned a lot from reading other people's posts on this forum, and hopefully I can help someone with this post whether or not I'm ultimately successful. Sometime in early 2007 the IRS filed a tax lien because I failed to file taxes 3 years in a row. The IRS calculated my return, came up with a taxable amount and filed a lien for about $23,000. I was clearly in the wrong here by not filing my returns in a timely manner, but I also did not receive a Notice of Lien from the IRS and I found out about the lien by looking at my credit report. After filing my taxes for the years in question, I owed for one year and had tax surpluses in the other two, and my total tax liability was only about $1,300, which I paid in full in January 2008 to have the lien released. I have been making attempts to clean up my credit and have done a decent job while establishing new credit and making all payments on time for the last few years, but the tax lien obviously remained and will show as a paid/released lien unless withdrawn, so I decided to try to have it withdrawn on the basis that I didn't receive proper notice per IRS administrative regulations. Below is my timeline of actions taken. I will update it as I take further actions.

7/10/10 - Sent IRS Form 12277 -Application for Withdrawal of Filed Form 668 (Y), Notice of Federal Tax Lien to my regional Technical Services Advisory Group

7/24/10 - Received letter from IRS rejecting my request for Withdrawal of Lien. Simply stated "Review of our records indicates that the lien was not filed prematurely and it was filed in accordance with IRS procedures." The letter had the name and telephone number of an IRS agent handling my case.

7/27/10 - After some deliberation as to my next step, I decided to call the agent as opposed to sending a letter. Upon speaking to the agent I explained that I never received any Notice of Lien and asked if she had a record of such notice being sent. After fumbling around for a bit, she told me all procedures were followed. My intuition told me she hadn't really made any investigation, so I asked her to provide me with dates sent and addresses to which such notices were sent. She told me she would research the matter and give me a call back.

[daheata]

I forgot I started this thread and certainly forgot to update it. My first attempt last year was unsuccessful, but recently I reviewed the lien filing again and I realized that the IRS did not file it in the county where I lived, mistakenly filing it in a neighboring county. I sent the IRS a letter point this out, stating as follows: "Per Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) 6323(f)(1)(A)(ii) notice of the tax lien is properly filed “in one office within the State (or the county, or other governmental subdivision), as designated by the laws of such State, in which the property subject to the lien is situated.” Per ***** law, actions against personal property are properly filed in the county in which the personal property resides, which per IRC 6323(f)(2)( is the residence of the taxpayer at the time the notice of lien was filed. Thus, the proper venue in the state of ****** for the filing of the tax lien was ********* Court in ***** County. However, the Notice of Federal Tax Lien was improperly filed by the IRS in ******* Court, ***** County. As the Notice of Tax Lien was not properly filed in accordance with IRS procedures, I respectfully request the IRS withdraw the lien as soon as possible."

When I did not hear back from them for 2 weeks I decided to call the agent, and was informed that the IRS had processed the withdrawal of lien, although the IRS agent tried to go out of her way to convince me that the withdrawal was not because they had made an error, but simply a courtesy because I had already paid the lien (yeah right!). I didn't argue because as long as the lien is being removed I am happy. I wish I had noticed this three years ago, but better late than never. I can't wait to see how much this lifts my score because I think this is the last major hurdle to a decent credit score!

[Quader]

Great Job ... who cares how you got there as long as you got what you wanted

Q

[TheGooch]

Congratulations! I filed 12277 and they removed liens from 2 of the 3 bureaus. The remaining one will age off in a couple of months, so I just might let it go until then.